The Londonderry sifter. (South Londonderry, Vt.) 1883-19??, 1887-06-30
TALMAGE'S SERMON.
The Weekly Discourse Of the Great
Brooklyn Preacher
Subject, GLOW to Save the Cities"

SupJect' HOW w saw '"' N''''''
TExr: "ind the men Of the city said unto
Elisha: Behold, Iprdy thee, the situation OF
this city is pleasant, as MY Lord secth, but
the ,cater Is naught, and the ground bdiTea
And he said. Bring me q aetc cruise, and
put salt therein. And they brought IL to him.
| And he tcent forth unto The spring Of the
eaters, and cast the salt IN there, and said.
Thus, said the Lord, / hare healed these
,odters, there shall not be from thence am
more death or barren land, So The tpoters
,cere heated unto this ddph--2 Kings H.,
1922
1t is difficult to estimate how much of tn,
| prosperity and health OF u city are dependent
upon good water, The time when, through
well-laid pipes and from safe reservoir, an
| abundance of water from Croton, or Ridge
wood, or Schuylkill is brought into the city
is appropriately celebrated with Grafton and
pyrotechuic display, Thank God every day
| FOR clear, bright, beautiful sparkling water
| as il drops in the shower or losses up in tho
fountain, or PUSHES out at the hydrant
! The City of Jericho, Notwithstanding all
| its physical and commercial advantages, was
lacking in this important element There
was enough water, but it was diseased, and
the people We're crying out by reason thereof
Elisha the prophet, comes to the rescue. He
says: Get me q new cruise; ill il with salt
and bring il tom me- So the cruse of salt was
brought to the prophet, and see him walk
ing out to the general reservoir, and 10! all
the impurities depart, througha supernatural
| and divine influence, and the waters are
clap their hands and lift up their faces in the
gladness. Water for Jericho--clear, bright,
! beautiful God given water.
| AT different times ! have pointed out to YOU
! the fountains OF municipal corruption, and
this morning propose TO show You what are
/ the means for the rectitcatiou of those foun-
tains. There are four or five kinds of salt
! that have a cleansing tendency. So far as
! God may help me, ] shall bring Il cruise of
salt to the work and empty it into the great
reservoir OF municipal crime Sin and shame,
! ignorance and abomination
/ In this work of cleansing our cities have
first to remark, that there is q work for the
| broom and shovel that nothing else can do
| There always has been an intimate connection
between iniquity and dirt. The filthy parts
! of the great cities are always the most iniuu-
tous parts The cutters ard the pavements
of the Fourth Ward, New York, illustrate
and symbolic the character of the people in
! the Fourth Ward.
/ The first thing that bad man does when
! he is converted is thoroughly to wash him
! self There We're, this morning, on the way
| to the different churches, thousands of men in
/ proper apparel who, before their conversion,
/ were unfit in their Sabbath dress. When on
the Sabbath | see a man mcleanly in his
! dress, my suspicious i'll regard TO his moral
! character are aroused, and they are always
well founded So as to allow no excuse for
lack of ablution, God has cleft the continents
with rivers and lakes, and has sunk five great
I oceans, and all the world ought to be clean
| Away, then, with the dirt from our cities,
not only because the physical health needs an
ablution, but because all the great moral and
religious interests of the cities demand it as
| positive necessity, A filthy city always has
been and always will be wicked city.
! Through the upturning of the earth foi
! great Improvement our city could not be ex-
pected to be as clean as usual, but for the
| illimitabe dirt of Brooklyn for the last six
months there is no excuse. 1t is not merely
amatter Of dust in the eyes, and mud for the
shoes, and of stencil for the nostrils, but of
morals for the soul
Another corrective influence that we would
bring to bear upon the evils of great cities
is Christian printing press. The news
papers of any place are the test of its moral
lty. The newsboy who runs along the street
with roll of papers under his arm is ire
mendous force that cannot be turned aside
nor resisted, and at his every step the
city is elevated or degraded. This hun
CRY, all-devouring American mind must
have something to read, and upon ed
tors and authors and book publishers and
! parents and teachers rests the responsibility of
what Chey shall read. Almost every man
you meet has a book in his hand or news
paper in his pocket What book is it YOU
have in your hand. What newspaper is it
you have in your pocket Ministers may
preach, feformets may plafi, philanthropists
may toll for the elevation of the suffer-
ing and the criminal, but until all
the newspapers of the land and all
/ the booksellers of the land set themselves
against an iniquitous literature~~until then
we shall be fighting against fearful odds.
Every time the cylinders Of our great pub
fishing houses turn they make the earth
quake. From them goes forth thought like
an angel of light to feed and bless the world,
or like an angel of darkness to smite it with
corruption and sin and shame and death. May
God by His omnipotent Spirit purify and ele.
vate the American printing press.
go on further and say that we must de
pend upon the school for great deal of cor
recting influence. A community can no more
afford to have ignorant men in its midst than
it can afford to have uncaged hyenas. lg-
norance is the mother of hydra l.eaded crime.
Thirty-one per cent Of all the criminals Of
New York State can neither read nor write.
Intellectual darkness is generally the pre-
cursor of moral darkness. | know
there are educated outlaws-men
who, through their sharpness of in
tellect, are made more dangerous. They
use their fine penmanship in signing other
peoples names, and their science in ingenious
pmglar1es, and their line manners in adroi,
lbertinism. They go their round of sin with
well-cut apparel, and dangling jewelry, and
watches Of eighteen karats, and kid gloves.
They are refined educated magnificent vii
lains. But that is the exception. 1t is generally
the case that the criminal classes are as igno-
rant as they are wicked. For the proof OF
what | say, 90 into the prisons and penten-
tiaries, and look upon the men and women in
generated. The dishonesty in the eye, the
low passion in the lip, are not more conspicu'
! tI,n,, tl,ni ti..f
ignorant classes are always the dangerous
classes Demagogues marshal them They
are helmlesS, and are driven before the gale
1t is high time that all city and State au
thority, well as the Federal Government
appreciate the awful statistics that while year.
ago i'll this country there was set apart forty
eight millions of acres for school purposes
there are now in New England one hundred
and ninety-one thousand people who cal
neither read nor write, and in the State o
Pennsylvania two hundred and twenty
two Thousand who can neither read MOI
write, and in the State of New York two
. hundred and forty one thousand who car
neither read nor WRITE while in the Unitet
} States there are nearly six millions who cal
6 neither read nor write. Statistics enough Il
stagger and confound any man who loves hi
God and his country. Now, in view of thi
t fact, | am in favor of compulsory educa
G ton. When parents are SO bestial as to neglec
this duty to the child, / say the law
with a strong hand, at the same time with
i gentle hand, ought to lead these little ones int,
d the light of intelligence and good morals. /
was beautiful tableau when in our CITY
swarthy policeman, having picked up los
e child in the street, was found appeasing it
cries with a stick of candy he had bought a
), the apple-stand. That was well done, ant
beautifully done. But oh! these thou
e sands of little ones through our street
n who are crying for the bread of knowledg
and intelligence. Shall we not give it t
e them? The officers of the law ought to g
: down into the cellars and up in the garnet
{ and bring out these benighted little ones, an,
put them under educational influences; afte
= they have passed through the bath and unde
e the comb, putting before them the spelling
book, and teaching them to read tn
Lords Prayer and the Sermon OH til
Mount: BLESSED are the poor in spirit TO
theirs is the kingdom of heaven" Our cit
4 ought to be father and mother both to thes
ouUcasU little ones. AS recipe for the cur
of much of the VICE. and want, and crime {
i our city, give the words which Thorwaldse
It had chiseled on the open scroll in the hand G
3 John Gutenberg, the inventor of the art G
;. printing: LET there be light"
y ,rtb pafnr TOR, ;at, -